Magnetic
by doxthextimexwarp
Summary: Clare and Eli spend time together outside as they discover their differences. But two people who contradict easily compliment each other. Like magnets. Clare/Eli. ONE-SHOT.


_With this story, I hope to inspire you to write more Eli and Clare stories. There is so much to discover, I would enjoy reading you do it. Please Review and Comment. Thanks for taking the time to read._

**Magnetic**

It was another sunny day as Eli and Clare headed out to the park tables that lay just outside of Degrassi's front doors. Strolling together hand in hand at an easy pace, Clare's other arm was holding three textbooks while Eli's other hand rested inside the pocket of his dark skinny jeans.

Eli looked over as he began to witness a textbook slip out of Clare's light grasp. And in one quick swipe, he was now the owner of an Advanced Chemistry textbook.

"Thanks," Clare spoke softly as her eyes glanced over at her other books to make sure none of the others would slip. She looked up at him and gave him her signature smile. In return Eli only smirked by bringing up the left-side of lips only a smidge.

Their fingers still laced between them, they walked up to a wooden table that lay underneath the cool shade of a large weeping willow. In order to keep Clare's hand firmly in his, Eli silently tightened his grip on Clare's pale and slender fingers and brought their joined hands to rest on the wooden table top. On his right, Clare's free hand was opening the pages of her history book and she began to skim the pages for the quiz she would have later. Meanwhile, Eli placed the Advanced Chemistry textbook onto the table.

With his newly free hand, he brought it next to Clare's left hand that he had already been holding tightly. Silently, Eli flipped over Clare's hand to bring her palm facing up. His green eyes gazing intently at her hand, he attempted to memorize every little detail.

His fingers began to whisper along her skin and her heart skipped a beat as it attempted to listen. She blushed a light rose on a her cheeks. Eli's touch would never grow old. Scientifically speaking, it could be due to the fact that they were such opposite temperatures. Eli's body temperature always felt at least ten degrees cooler than hers. Which was odd, because weren't normal men supposed to run hot? But Eli didn't. And that was just one of the minor details that made him interesting to discover.

Meanwhile, Eli was tracing Clare's lifeline. Upon reaching its end, she traced the other minute branches that were outlined on Clare's skin. His finger headed up to her ring finger and began to fiddle with the silver metal band that Clare had on it. He watched its smooth edges, watch how Eli could easily twist it around her finger. It wasn't supposed to be hers, otherwise it wouldn't be so easily to do such motions.

Without looking up from her text on Renaissance paintings, Clare spoke to him quietly, "It's a purity ring."

His green eyes looked up to her pale face as blue eyes returned the gesture. "But whose was it?" he asked, his gaze intent. He saw a spark of some emotion flash through Clare's eyes but he was unable to read it quick enough. Unfortunately. Though it was one of the reasons he was intrigued by Clare, being able to not read her emotions as easily as normal people, it did trouble him at times. Like now.

He cocked his head to the side as he watched Clare's pink lips let go of one word, "Darcy."

When Clare saw his eyes turn from curiosity to now a deep questioning, Clare let more words escape as she explained. "My older sister."

He gave one nod of the head as he took in her response. Like always, his first question turned to the morbid. "Did she die?" he asked quietly.

Clare smiled and gave a small giggle. "No, she's still kickin'. She's in Kenya right now, actually. Working with a church down there."

Eli nodded again and once more asked another question. The one Clare didn't particularly want to answer but, knowing Eli, he would bluntly ask. "Why doesn't she have it?"

Clare bit her lip and her blue eyes still looked at Eli's. She tilted her head to the left and continued pressing her teeth down against her pale pink lip. Formulating her words, she quietly spoke her answer. "She doesn't need it anymore."

Eli didn't need to know any further. For whatever reason, her sister had gone against the Christian formula of waiting until marriage. But as Clare's eyes began to wander down near her text again, he noticed that barely-there flash of emotion that he had witness earlier.

It was sadness. And no wonder he hadn't seen it clearly before. Clare always chose to ignore those feelings as fast as she could; she never wanted to dwell on them.

Piecing a few of the fragments together, Eli concluded the real truth. "I'm sorry," he replied to her silence in a quiet whisper.

Clare looked up at him, her eyes now turning from forced blankness to a light joy. "Thanks," she said as she smiled at him gently.

Her newly-found confidence came up again as Clare spoke a question she had long been pondering. With a desire to discover, she asked him with a smirk, "I told you about mine. Now what about your ring?"

Without needing to glance down, Eli understood what she was talking about. It was the skull and crossbones silver ring that he had on the ring finger on his right hand.

"I got it out of a 50-Cent machine at a grocery store from where I used to live when I was seven. I thought it was bad ass," he said with a smirk. Clare laughed as she took in his words.

"And you still wear it?" she asked with a gleaming smile.

"It just became habit. And, you know, it fits since I'm bad ass." His smirk turned into a smile as his eyes lingered upon Clare's face before turning back to their entwined fingers. Meanwhile Clare's eyes went back to studying her text.

Though her part of her mind was concentrated acutely on the information before her eyes, the back of her mind was at a rush. Beside her, Eli's mind replicated that same 50-50 combination.

On the inside, where it counted, they were similar. They had that one unifying factor: that pure and honest electricity of love that they didn't speak of for fear of breaking its hold. It was addicting, a pure and sinful lusting. But at the same time, it was angelic.

But on the outside, they were blatantly contradicting.

"Who knew that opposites could be so close?" He whispered to her, slowly and calmly as he went back to tracing branches on Clare's palm.

Clare turned her head to look over at the boy she had once called English Enemy to now boyfriend. To be honest, Clare would now call him lover if it hadn't had such a reference to fornication. As a blush made its way to cross her cheeks after that thought, Eli looked up and met her pure blue eyes. He smiled at her.

Clare's pale pink lips parted and she let one word escape and travel through the whispers of trees and the delightfully warm rays of the sun.

"Magnetic."


End file.
